Bill Hand: An early Bonnie and Clyde

Bill Hand, Sun Journal Staff

Sunday

Aug 11, 2013 at 12:01 AMAug 11, 2013 at 6:04 PM

In today’s “Civil War Warriors in New Bern of the Female Gender,” we look at a pair of losers who are truly worthy of having their own movie. It would be a sort of “Raising Arizona” without the baby. And without a motorcyclist with grenades.

In today’s “Civil War Warriors in New Bern of the Female Gender,” we look at a pair of losers who are truly worthy of having their own movie. It would be a sort of “Raising Arizona” without the baby. And without a motorcyclist with grenades.

Her name was Sarah Malinda Pritchard Blalock, a 17-year-old lady living near Grandfather Mountain who got that last name by marrying a local goober named Keith.

The Blalocks were Unionists. Abe Lincoln was not their hero, but neither was Jeff Davis or secession. When the state went to war, the Blalocks were in desperate straights: They didn’t want to fight for the South, but the capture of Charleston, S.C., had made the state pretty hot for war. Neighbors were watching Sarah’s husband and wondering why that strapping young man wasn’t showing his loyalty by marching off to war.

Keith came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea: He would sign up with the hated rebels — the 26th North Carolina was in the area seeking recruits. Perhaps Sarah sort of stared at him and asked, “So you’re going to avoid fighting for the South by fighting for the South?”

But he laid out his brilliant plan: The 26th was marching to Virginia to face the Yankees. Once there, he would slip through the lines and join the first Yankee regiment he came to.

Sarah thought it was brilliant, and the neighbors all smiled as this newly favored son marched off to war.

Then she carried out a plan of her own. She pulled a Mulan and cut her hair, put on a set of her husband’s clothes, and hurried to register herself in the same regiment, declaring herself to be Keith’s brother, Sam. We can imagine Keith’s surprise when he soon found his wife marching at his side. They began to plot how they would cross over to Yankees in Virginia together.

This was March 20. Those who are familiar with our Civil War history know that, just a few days earlier, the 26th had been in a hot firefight where they lost the Battle of New Bern — perhaps they were trying to rebuild their ranks. In any case, because of the occupation of New Bern, the 26th wound up going no farther north than Kinston.

Yes, Kinston. We feel their pain.

Sarah and Keith were in a few firefights together, and she managed to keep her identity secret for several months. But fate finally came knocking when the Blalocks were sent as part of a force to reconnoiter around New Bern.

Shooting ensued and, after the skirmish, Keith found his beloved clinging to a tree with a bullet wound in her shoulder. He carried her to safety, and a surgeon removed the ball from her shoulder. But he found something else under her shirt — maybe a couple of something elses, if you get my drift — and her secret was let out.

It was obvious she would be discharged. Keith, desperate to stay by her side, found a field of poison oak, stripped down and rolled in it for a good half hour. The next day, he showed up at the surgeon swollen and blistered and claimed he had the small pox.

They returned home, but when local Confederates tried to force him to sign up again, the couple fled into the hills where they found like-minded Unionists.

There are another couple of jumps I won’t cover here, but eventually they found themselves with a guerilla squadron in the Carolina mountains where they spent the remainder of the war raiding and looting secessionists and murdering with abandon. He even took out an uncle who dared to turn secessionist on him. They were sort of the early version of Bonnie and Clyde.

After the war, they gave up their murdering ways. Well, Keith killed off a couple of folks as part of a revenge thing, but we can live with that. They were both fairly banged up — he’d lost an eye and the use of a hand. Sarah would die in 1901 at the fairly young age of 59, and her husband would mourn her for years after. In 1913, he took his turn, dying in a railroad accident. Both are buried at the Montezuma Cemetery in Avery County.

Contact Bill Hand at newbernhistory@yahoo.com.

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